Exploring Michigan and the American Civil War

November 2011

November 29, 2011

One sense about the Civil War Centennial is that it "petered" out, lost momentum, tailed off. Would that happen with the Sesquicentennial?, folks have wondered aloud in print and elsewhere. Well, there sure looks to be a solid continuum of events already on the calendar for 2012, as witnssed by this: MICWPartners

November 22, 2011

The Michigan Humanities Council has announced awards grants to 14 cultural and historical projects, among which is:

The Clarke Historical Library at Central Michigan University has been awarded $15,000 for the project, “Native Americans in the Civil War,” which includes the completion and dissemination of The Road to Andersonville: Michigan Native American Sharpshooters in the Civil War, a film documenting the history of the Native American soldiers of the 1st Michigan Sharpshooters during the Civil War. The film will be publicly shared through PBS television, local showings and an interactive website.

November 20, 2011

One of the major criticisms of the Centennial commemoration of the Civil War was its lack of focus on one of the most important contemporary issues of the day, to wit, the struggle over Civil Rights in the late 1950s and 1960s. Yours truly wrote an article on the Michigan commemoration for the Historical Society of Michigan a couple of years ago; a number of excellent works (David Blight's new American Oracle) make such criticism.

Our animating Sesquicentennial document in Michigan, Executive Order 2007-52, requires the commemoration to be "inclusive" and "authentic." We've worked hard on that. Our very first conference, first in the Nation, focused on John Brown, Frederick Douglass, and the fateful meeting in Detroit in March 1859 with leading Black business leaders. We started off by recognizing the great diversity of our Civil War story and will continue to do that. It's purposely reflected in Michigan and the Civil War: A Great and Bloody Sacrifice.

A reenactor group helps educate folks about the 1st Michigan Colored Infantry:

A documentary, Michigan: The Civil War Experience, recently aired on public TV here, produced by iMichigan Productions of whom two major domos are A-A.

November 18, 2011

As an avid member of the Civil War Trust, I find battlefield preservation -- indeed, anything Civil War-preservation-related -- a compelling case. When the Trust shows a picture of the intersection of US-29 at the Sudley Springs Road on the Manassas battlefield congested with motor vehicles as one of the reasons to get behind preservation, I buy it.

I've worked with improvements in government for nearly my entire legal career. I generally find government to be a great Sphinx -- inscrutable, its inertia rolling it in whatever blind direction it is headed, without so much as a nod toward the common sense solution. I could tell tales. It is not shocking then, though deplorable, to see government, at whatever level, standing in the way of aiding in the preservation of our past and aiding in the advancement of lower level priorities. Do I like to sit in traffic jams? No! So do I give a blank check to government to bulldoze its way through and across historic places so that I can get somewhere 15 minutes faster. No. There are other cures.

If I was czar, I would close off US-29 through the Manassas NMP and make it off-limits to other than touring traffic. That doesn't seem a tall order. I would re-route interstates all across the country around Civil War battlefields in order to restore them to their historic look. That surely would be a tall order, given there are so so so many (270 at monacacy, 66 at manassas, 81 in the Shenandoah Valley, 295 around Richmond, just to name a few).

During this Sesquicentennial, with the federal government doing so little to honor our past, wouldn't it be amazing if veneration were chosen as opposed to vehicularization?

November 15, 2011

Adrian is a great old town and it's an honor to present on Michigan and the Civil War this Thursday the 17th at 7 p.m. Here's the blurb:

Mr. Dempsey’s new book is a “comprehensive portrayal of the role that Michigan played immediately prior to, during, and immediately after the Civil War. Michigan provided military support, logistical support, political support, and then you have a number of incidents - or vignettes - where Michiganders played a highly significant role, both in general and specific.”

Mr. Dempsey is chairman of the Michigan Civil War Sesquicentennial Committee, the vice president of the Michigan Historical Commission, the chairman of the Michigan History Foundation and a board member of the Historical Society of Michigan. The author's proceeds from the book support Michigan's commemoration of the Civil War Sesquicentennial. The program is free and open to the public. Books will be available for sale and Mr. Dempsey will be signing his book.

November 14, 2011

Apparently yours truly did not pull a "Rick Perry" (that's meant to be a friendly jibe) at the Kalamazoo Round Table event on October 21, for here is what their current newsletter says about it:

"Last Month’s Meeting

Last month Jack Dempsey presented Michigan: 1861, the First Year of the Civil War. Jack began by examining Michigan’s early history, pointing out that Michigan had only been a state for a short time in 1861, and had to fight the Toledo War before joining the Union. A strong anti-slavery state, Michigan was the birthplace of the Republican Party. Jack discussed Michigan’s prompt response to Lincoln’s call for troops, and the large percentage of Michigan citizens who served in the war, and the equally high number of casualties suffered by Michigan citizens. He discussed Michigan’s soldiers’ roles in the early battles, and concluded with a lively question and answer session. The large crowd clearly enjoyed Jack’s program and purchased a good number of his books."

What's gratifying is the indication that folks in attendance feel they learned some things about Michigan and the Civil War that they didn't necessarily know beforehand ... quite something when the audience is composed of Civil War "buffs."

Michigan Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, Michigan Department of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, History Remembered, Inc., IMichigan Productions, Friends of Michigan History, Inc., Michigan Civil War Sesquicentennial Committee, Michigan Historical Center